Jack O'Malley Interview w/ Dave Richey
Name it, and it could and did wrong that day. Two highly experienced anglers set out on their first joint fishing trip of the year.
Both should have slept in for two more hours. RJ Doyle of Mecosta and I met in Honor, went to where he stores his boat, and discovered the boat seats were at his nearby cabin. We retrieved the seats, and he decided to check the battery.
You got it. Flat as a sourdough pancake. Someone had left the live well running for two weeks. It prompted another unexpected trip, this time to Bud's Garage & Sporting Goods in Honor.
R.J. with his nice smallie.
Now, the junior size marine battery could be charged but it would cut two or three hours out of our first joint fishing trip of the year. John Rosa, owner of Bud's, offered us a different battery to use.
John tried to move it and couldn't. RJ tried to move the huge battery and couldn't, so you get one guess who carried about 100 pounds of marine battery out of the shop and to the boat. Hefting that behemoth into his boat meant he had to help once I put it up on the gunwale. We hooked the trailer to the car, headed for Platte Lake's single boat launch at about 10:30 a.m. So much for getting an early start. We launched the boat and decided to try for some of the jumbo walleyes the lake occasionally produces. Guess what? Wrong choice. We were into the fifth day of a high pressure system, and it's now 11 a.m., and the sun hung like a bright yellow balloon in a cloudless blue sky, and there were few boats on the water, which is never a good sign. We trolled the shallows, along the first dropoff and near submerged weed beds, and switched depths and lure colors. We matched our lure choices to our trolling speed, and worked in and out of the 20 to 35-foot depths. Not a strike, a nibble or a bump. The walleyes were off on a holiday. Five days of sunshine and warm temperatures. I figured the fish would be in deep water. We were trolling near bottom with lures at 48 feet when a savage strike ripped line off my reel.It was a big catfish Platte Lake is known for.
It took out 20 yards of line on the strike, and my first thought was "this isn't a walleye." This fish fought a dogged fight, and stayed deep. We'd catch the occasional glimpse of the fish down about 15 feet, but I knew it wasn't a walleye.
Ten minutes later it was led to RJ's waiting net, and he pronounced it a channel catfish. It pulled my string, and made me grin as I shot some photos of No. 1 Doyle. The last time he had fished Platte Lake for walleyes he had landed two big catfish weighing 15 pounds each. Folks, after suffering through months of not fishing with my buddy, any fish big enough to rip off 20 yards of line beat whatever could come in second-best. We tried fishing deeper water for another hour without anything hitting our lures. "What do you think," he asked. "I'm tired of trolling. Let's break out the spinning rods, smaller lures and work the shallows along the first dropoff and see if any smallmouth bass are home." Good ideas come to those who think, recognize a problem, and consider ways to turn this day into something worthwhile.Casting, for me, is more fun than trolling.
We knotted Shad Raps to our 8-pound line, and on the first cast Doyle yelped: "I've got a good bass and it hit my first cast."
I looked up just in time to watch the fish do what smallmouth bass do so well: jump. I missed the first jump but caught the second water-clearing leap before it made a short run. It fought that bulldogged battle that smallies are noted for. Doyle played the fish with a soft hand, and the fish made one last-ditch jump in an attempt to get away. He came to the net as all smallmouth bass do, with red in his eye. I slid the meshes around the fish, handed the net and fish to my friend, and went back to fishing the rest of the drift. He yelped when the smallie twisted free of his bottom jaw grip, and ran one hook from a treble hook deep into his finger but the hook came right back out. Gingerly, Doyle lowered the five-pound smallmouth bass into the lake, nursed him gently as the fish regained some strength, and then it shot away heading for deep water. We had one more smallmouth bass strike, and went two fish for three hook-ups over five hours of fishing. It wasn't good fishing. It was great fishing under the current weather conditions. We managed to each catch fish, enjoy each other's company, and the fishing proved that if you can go through enough bad things, something good will come from a day like this one. It was the best fishing day I've had in some time, and spending time on the water with an old and dear friend is what made it possible.
